Metropolitan utilities districts (MUD) board members would be chosen by district elections under a bill given first-round approval Jan. 12.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Brenda Council said she introduced LB190 in the hope of making MUD board membership more reflective of the citizens it serves. Currently, members are elected at large.<\/p>\n
Most political subdivisions are elected by district, Council said, so that members reflect the geographic, economic and political perspectives of district voters.<\/p>\n
In its 100-year history, the MUD board has had only one African American member, she said, and that member was appointed rather than elected. As a result, Council said, citizens in North Omaha feel disconnected from the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe residents of some portions of that district don\u2019t view themselves as having a representative on that board,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As introduced, the bill also would have applied to Nebraska public power districts serving cities of the metropolitan class. An Urban Affairs Committee amendment, adopted 31-0, removed that provision.<\/p>\n
The amendment also removed a provision authorizing one at-large member of the board and instead would provide for seven election districts.<\/p>\n
Council offered an amendment, adopted 32-0, which would stagger board member elections beginning in 2012. After 2016, all members would be elected to six-year terms.<\/p>\n
Council said the amendment would provide continuity for the board by not requiring all members to stand for election immediately.<\/p>\n
Senators advanced the bill to select file on a 31-0 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Metropolitan utilities districts (MUD) board members would be chosen by district elections under a bill given first-round approval Jan. 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[123],"class_list":["post-5620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-urban-affairs","tag-sen-brenda-council"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5620"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5625,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620\/revisions\/5625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}